


This Woman, Pale and Perfect

by Mademoiselle



Category: General Hospital
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mademoiselle/pseuds/Mademoiselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikolas and Elizabeth in a version of the Pygmalion myth ... that's kind of Oedipal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Woman, Pale and Perfect

What he knows of women he learned from two.  They leave or they use.  He does not prefer one over the other.

 

_I love you, Nikolas. Never forget that,_ Laura said before she left.

 

_You are a true Cassadine, Nikolas,_ Helena tells him everyday.

 

He is grateful to these women, their words and actions taught him well.

 

He has had women of his own, to use and leave as he sees fit.  He knows nothing of these women and learns nothing from them.

 

He does not love these women.

~

 

He sees her, pale and perfect, one day along the beach. Her path might have led her to him, but someone called out and kept her from him.

 

_Elizabeth_

 

He dreams of this woman, pale and perfect, with soft curves that fit in his hands and warm skin that molds to his touch. They ride horses one day and play chess the next. They read to each other classic tales, and she dresses up as Salomé, Mephistos, and Galatea. They make love each night.  

 

He awakens when her skin turns cold and hard, and she shatters beneath him.

 

He loves this woman.

~

 

He arrives home one day, and she is dancing by the pool. Moonlight on her head and candlelight at her feet.

 

She looks at him and smiles.  She walks to him and takes his hands.  She cannot be an illusion.

 

They dance and talk all night. He does not ask her why she’s there as he holds her warm body tightly to his and keeps the cold night air from chilling her skin.

 

A week goes by and Elizabeth now only drinks and smokes and draws alone. She goes out every night and comes to him until the early morning. Only when they make love, is she is she as soft and sweet and warm as he remembers.

 

Only in his bed is she as pale and perfect as he remembers.

~

 

Soon it shatters, and when they make love their hands and words are cruel.  She thought he was different from the others, she says.  He thought she was different from herself, he replies.

 

One day he wakes at dawn and she is not in bed.  He searches the house for her and wakes his men to search the grounds.  There is no sign of her anywhere.

 

He does not ask if he imagined it, because it does not matter.

 

Elizabeth was a woman exactly like all the rest.

 

What he knows of women he learned from three.  

~

 

He finds her in three days, but it is three months before he goes to her.

 

She has a son, and she is with him in America.

 

The first month he is angry that she did not tell him. The second he is hurt and angry that she chose her son over him. The third he is ashamed.

 

They marry nine months from the day he saw her on the beach. She is not perfect, but she was made for him.  There has never been a better Cassadine wife nor mother.

 

What he knows of love and women he learned from her.

~

 

_fini._


End file.
